Invoking the Muse
by RFletcher
Summary: Harry discovers that he still has much to learn from the Muses in his life about the role of music in both love and war. WARNING: Contains Book Six spoilers


**Disclaimer the First:** They ain't mine. No infringement of copyright is intended. I think you all know the rest.

**Disclaimer the Second:** This is very much a sequel to _Finding the Muse_, and I'm afraid it will likely make little to no sense to anyone who hasn't read that story. (In point of fact, it begins only a little more than an hour after _FTM_ left off.) You're more than welcome to continue reading if you haven't read _FTM_, but you have been warned… This story will take place concurrently with Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (in other words, the author will be desperately trying to crowbar things back into canon).

**Invoking the Muse**

by Rain Fletcher

_"This is the tale I pray the divine Muse will unfold to us. Begin it, goddess, at whatever point you will."  
_Homer, _Odyssey  
_

Part 1 - Terpsichore (October)

Against all reason and sense, and in spite of the very real truth that he hadn't the ghost of an idea what he was doing, Harry Potter was dancing.

Hufflepuff's impromptu concert on the Hogwarts grounds was into its second hour, though the focus had changed significantly. The bagpipe and drum corps had given way to a folk octet (led by Professor Sprout, playing her hammered dulcimer), and as the eight musicians launched into a particularly jaunty tune, Hannah Abbott and Ernie MacMillan herded the gathered crowd of students into a wide circle. Once they had about fifteen feet of clear space, the two of them met in the middle. Ernie bowed, Hannah curtsied, and they joined hands and proceeded to dance.

Harry's first reaction had been surprise: even as much as he had learned about Hufflepuff's hidden talents, he would never have even considered the idea of folk dance. More to the point, he never would have guessed that Ernie, all six-plus feet and sixteen stone of him, would be so light on his feet. Nonetheless, there he was, twirling in circles with Hannah, locking arms and spinning this way and that, the very picture of graceful abandon.

Then, quite suddenly, they split off from one another and each went to grab a new partner out of the circle. Hannah brought out her younger housemate Owen Cauldwell, and Ernie paired himself off with a grinning Luna Lovegood. Soon the two couples were mirroring one another perfectly: Luna, predictably, seemed to know every step, and Harry was beginning to believe that there was truly no end to the Ravenclaw's artistic abilities.

As the instrumentalists began another verse, the two sets of partners split yet again, and after some whispered words between them, each of the four dancers went to grab yet another new partner. To Harry's shock, Hannah made a beeline for him, grabbed his hand, and yanked him out from the circle's edge, barely leaving him time to pass the drum he'd been playing to the second-year Slytherin girl at his left.

"Hannah, wha - I can't dance!" he protested.

"Of course you can!" she giggled. "Just follow my lead!"

The four couples positioned themselves as though at compass points, and resumed the wild, whirling dance. Harry did the best he could, but more or less let the much smaller Hannah fling him around. As he got a look around at the rest of the circle, he saw that Owen had brought in Katie Bell, Luna had paired up with Neville Longbottom, and Ernie, to Harry's momentary distraction, was now dancing with Cho Chang. Neville, like Harry himself, was being hopelessly outclassed by his partner, but seemed to be holding his own, making Harry that much more determined to do the same.

"What dance is this?" he asked Hannah, having to raise his voice to be heard over the dozens of drums, the eight musicians, and the innumerable cheers and catcalls from the crowd.

"It's a jig!" she replied, then laughed again. "Well, sort of! Don't worry - you're doing fine!"

Surprisingly enough, Harry found that he believed her, and thus it was that he found himself in the most unlikely position of dancing like a madman in front of a crowd of scores, if not hundreds, of his classmates.

Just when he felt that he was getting used to it, though, Ernie called out "And... switch!" Hannah suddenly released his hands, and with a graceful turn, skipped a quarter-spin around the inner circle to join hands with Ernie. Harry didn't have time to ask what was happening, however, as he suddenly had his hands full with Katie, who had been passed down the circle by Owen.

At least now he was on even footing: his longtime Quidditch teammate seemed to be as lost as he was. They did the best they could nonetheless, exchanging panicked grins and laughs as they dodged one another's feet.

"And... switch!"

And then Katie was gone, replaced by Luna, whose eyes were wide and merry even by her standards. "Luna?" Harry panted.

"Yes, Harry?" she laughed.

"What the hell are we doing!"

"Dancing, silly! Stop thinking about it so much! Just remember: there's no such thing as a wrong step!"

He wanted to disagree with her, but he had a sudden vivid recollection of her duet with Hermione Granger at Hufflepuff's Friday Festival, where every "wrong" note had been turned into a part of the song. At that moment, as Luna's silvery-blue eyes locked with his own, Harry felt something click inside him, and he realized that she was right. Again. With a rush of excitement and... there was no better word than _joy_, trite as it sounded... he knew that within this circle, there was nothing he could not do.

This feeling evaporated quickly, however, as Ernie called another switch, and Harry suddenly found himself face to face and hand in hand with Cho. Her face fell for just a moment as she met his eyes, but then she gave him a smile filled with a mix of warmth, apology and a little embarrassment, and they continued on from there with a lot less discomfort than Harry would have thought.

The next switch brought them back to their original partners, and Hannah and Harry were together again. "At the next change, find another partner to bring in!" she warned him, and then proceeded to expertly fling him around again. Harry was getting back some of the boldness he'd felt while dancing with Luna, and Hannah seemed to be enjoying the improvement, spurring him on with the occasional saucy comment and broad wink.

When the switch was called, the centre of the circle became a sudden press of rushing bodies as new partners were pulled from the ring of drummers and onlookers. Harry looked around wildly for Hermione amidst the sudden chaos, wanting desperately to share this with her, but he saw to his dismay that Owen was already taking her hand and leading her forward. He dodged the newly partnered Katie (with Seamus Finnegan) and Hannah (with Colin Creevey), then spotted the Patil twins just in time to see Parvati led away by Neville and Padma by Ernie. Cho had (predictably) grabbed hold of her boyfriend Michael Corner, and Luna was bringing a protesting Ron Weasley into the thick of things, leaving Harry the only one without a partner. He scanned the circle one last desperate time...

...and his eyes met those of Ginny Weasley, who was grinning and laughing, probably at the forlorn look on his face. He felt a rush of relief: he hadn't wanted to be partnered up with someone he didn't know, and he was certain that Ginny wouldn't laugh at his inexpertise. Pausing only to give an apologetic nod to her boyfriend Dean Thomas, Harry grabbed her hand and got her to the inner circle just in time.

The dance resumed, and at this point everything became a blur of motion, colour, rhythm and sound. The musicians had picked up the tempo dramatically, matched by the handclaps and drumbeats of the outer circle, leaving the sixteen dancers scrambling to keep up. No longer trying to keep to any organized formation, they changed partners and steps seemingly at random, and Harry found himself dancing not just with Ginny, but then with Parvati, then Luna, then Katie, then Padma, and even for a brief moment with Seamus after a botched switch paired the two up while Padma and Katie laughed hysterically at them.

Finally, Harry managed to work his way to Hermione, just as the song was winding up to its impossibly rapid finale. Abandoning any attempt at actual dance steps, then, they joined hands and began to spin around one another, faster and faster, eyes locked, both of them laughing like schoolchildren.

Even as he tried to put a name to this feeling, hoping to somehow hold onto it after the music stopped, he knew that it could never happen: it was something that simply defied description. Instead, he tried to burn images into his mind as they blurred past: Susan Bones playing her violin with such quick strokes that he swore there was smoke coming from the strings, Justin Finch-Fletchley beating out one complicated rhythm sequence after another on a large bodhran, Ron grinning like a maniac as he and Padma spun one another as Harry and Hermione were doing, Zacharias Smith playing on in spite of the fact that he'd broken two strings on his guitar with the force of his strumming, Hannah's distinctive peals of laughter rising clearly above it all, and in the middle of everything Hermione's look of incredulous, reckless delight as she continued to whirl around him at arms' length.

The song finally did come to a close, leaving Harry dizzy and out of breath, but still smiling. The smile threatened to become a full-blown grin, though, as Hermione launched herself at him and hugged him very tightly. A huge cheer rose from the crowd, and for a long, disorienting moment Harry thought they were cheering about the hug. Then Hermione broke away from him and started applauding as well, and he realized that they were quite rightly cheering for the musicians and the dancers. Blushing a little, then, he added his own applause.

"Thank you!" Professor Sprout called over the noise. "Thank you all for joining us! We'll try to do this every other Saturday at least, weather permitting, and you're all welcome to come along! Give yourselves a warm round as well, all of you! Hufflepuff House bids you good day!"

The crowd gave one last cheer, which faded into a babble of excited voices as the musicians were all but swarmed with admirers offering their praise. Harry was amused to see Justin surrounded by at least four star-struck young ladies, but when he caught Zacharias's eye, the guitarist looked away, stone-faced, and began murmuring _reparo_ spells on his strings.

Before he could wonder what that had been all about, Ernie was suddenly blocking his field of view and offering his hand. "Well done, Harry! Ever danced like this before?"

"Er, no. Can't say that I have," Harry admitted, giving the hand a vigourous shake.

"Well, I'm afraid it showed, but if we can teach Finch-Fletchley over there we can teach you. Hermione, dear lady, you were the very vision of grace."

"Many thanks, good sir," Hermione replied in an affected tone, returning his bow with a rough curtsy. "You weren't so bad yourself."

"Yeah, I didn't feel the ground trembling once," Ron laughed as he came up behind Harry and Hermione and put an arm across each of their shoulders. "Cripes, MacMillan, I thought Hannah was squished for sure. Shouldn't you dance with someone your own size?"

"Mister Weasley, there _is_ no one here that's my size," Ernie replied good-naturedly. "Now if you'll excuse me, I should make sure we get all of our drums back."

"We need to get going too, Hermione," Ron added as Ernie headed off. "McGonagall just told me she wants us to go on rounds right away. You know, make sure everyone gets back okay."

"Right," Hermione nodded, reaching over to give Harry's hand a squeeze. "Meet you back in the common room later, Harry?"

"Oh, yeah, of course," Harry replied, forcing a smile to his face and trying to push back the growing feeling of disappointment that the moment had passed. "See you there."

He watched his two best friends head back toward the castle, Ron's arm still across Hermione's shoulders. As he watched, Hermione pulled Ron into a hug very much like the one she'd given to Harry as the dance had ended, and suddenly he was having a much harder time keeping that disappointment from rising within him.

Then, as he looked away, he saw Luna embracing Professor Sprout, and his smile returned. Their argument from earlier in the week was obviously long past them.

"Hey, Harry," came another voice, and he looked over to see Ginny grinning at him as she came up to give him a one-armed hug. "Thanks for the dance. Dean's got a lot to live up to."

"Er, you're welcome," he replied, but Ginny was already on the move, hurrying to catch up with Dean. He watched the two of them join hands as they headed back toward the castle gates, and now his feeling of disappointment was tinged with no small amount of confusion. What was _that_ supposed to have meant?

"He's very nice to her," said a quiet voice beside him, and Harry looked over to see Luna there, smiling wistfully.

"Who, Dean?"

"Yes. He's quite a gentleman." Her smile then twisted into a look of vague concern. "I don't know that she likes it all the time, though. She thinks he tries too hard sometimes."

Harry found that he really didn't want to talk about Ginny anymore. "So you and Professor Sprout made up, then?"

Luna smiled radiantly, but said nothing. Harry took this as a good sign. "So, er, do you want to head back in?"

"I think I need to be outdoors for a while yet," Luna replied. "I need to go back to the tree and get my saxophone, at any rate."

"Ah," Harry nodded. "Er… would you like me to come with you?"

"I'd like that very much."

* * *

The tree wound up being only the first stop. After Luna had disassembled her saxophone and latched it up in its case, and Harry had retrieved Hermione's copy of _MYTHTORICAL MAGIC_ (commenting to Luna as he did so that Hermione had obviously been deeply affected by the dance if it had made her forget to go back for a _book_), they continued down the footpath along the edge of the lake, walking slowly, but unconsciously in step with one another. For the longest while they spoke very little: there did not seem to be much to say after the shared experience of music and dance. Harry asked a few questions about the steps they'd attempted, Luna spoke briefly about her preference for the gavotte and her appreciation for clogging, and the sun slipped lower in the sky as they continued down the path. 

"Let's go up into the woods," Luna said after a while. "I'd like to sing to the trees."

Harry was distantly surprised to find that her request sounded perfectly reasonable given the mood of the day. It didn't even occur that he should suggest caution. For once, dark wizards were among the furthest things from his mind. And the woods alongside the lake were nothing like the Forbidden Forest, after all. "Lead the way."

One of the things Harry liked best about Hogwarts was that it was, in every way, almost completely _un_like Little Whinging. Here was just one more example: even though he knew he was less than half a mile from the castle, his classrooms and his dormitory, it took scarcely a dozen steps off the path to feel as though they were alone in the deepest wilderness. The sounds he'd grown up with – traffic, angry voices and television – were replaced by the wind, the birds, and the rustling branches.

After they'd walked perhaps a hundred metres, Luna placed one hand on Harry's arm, as if to hold him back. He stopped, giving her a puzzled look, but she seemed oblivious. She took several steps past him, then turned in a slow circle, looking up into the trees. A soft, melodic sound joined the quiet whispers of the forest, and Harry realized that Luna was humming.

Then, still spinning slowly, eyes closed, arms slightly outstretched, she began to sing.

Having only heard Luna sing by herself once (back at Hufflepuff two Fridays past, singing one of the verses of the "Skye Boat Song"), Harry was not at all prepared for what he was now hearing. She sang a wordless, haunting song that reminded him strongly of the sacred music taught by the Fat Friar, but rather than chanting in a long-dead language, she was singing only in vowels, her voice leaping melodically from one extreme of her vocal range to the other.

_Ah-yey… ah-yah… eh-yah-yoh… ooh-ee-yey-ee-yah…_

Harry took a breath that quickly turned into a shudder. Much like the Friday Festival had done, today's celebratory drumming and dancing had left him feeling as though his mind and soul were wide open. For just a moment he realized how vulnerable he was, but then it passed – he felt perfectly safe here. Her song could do him no harm.

He closed his eyes and let himself be filled by the sounds of the trees and the tones of her voice. The effect was heady and hypnotic, and his mind was filled with images of the Muses and Sirens of legend. Harry was, after more than five years at Hogwarts, no stranger to magic, but the energies being invoked by Luna were unlike anything he'd yet experienced. Was this what magic had been like before wizards and witches had bound it to words and wands and books?

_Ay-yah… eh-yah-yey… oh-eh-yoh-oh…_

Her voice trailed off, and after a while Harry opened his eyes to see that she had set down her instrument case and approached a fallen tree that looked as though it had lain there for decades. Moss and fallen leaves seemed to have reached up from the forest floor to enshroud and protect it. Luna was standing a few feet from it, holding very still and watching the wind rustle the leaves over its surface.

Not really noticing his own movements, Harry crossed the distance between them and stood beside her. It was then that he saw that she was crying: trails of tears shone on both cheeks. "Luna?" he said softly.

"Look, Harry," she said in an awed whisper, not taking her eyes from the fallen tree. "The trees are burying their dead…"

Quite suddenly, Harry felt as though his legs were about to give way, and he shuddered violently with his next breath, Hermione's book falling from his nerveless hand as a wave of numbness swept through him. Whether or not it had been due to his present feeling of vulnerability and openness, her words resonated with something deep inside him, and it was at the same time breathtaking and terrifying. Emotions he'd unknowingly kept locked away for years, if not his entire life, were screaming to be set free… if he only knew how.

Luna placed a hand on his shoulder, and he realized from this touch that he was trembling. She must have felt it as well, as she suddenly put her arms around him and held him tightly. Her wand, tucked behind her ear as always, briefly poked him in the cheek as he lowered his face to rest against her shoulder. "You're alright," she whispered. "It lived a good life. Let the forest care for it now."

He nodded against her, feeling almost as though he should be crying, but what he was experiencing was not sadness at all. It was something that he could not yet name, and as frightening as it was, it was actually quite welcome. Startlingly enough, the closest experience with which he could compare it was his reaction to seeing Cho smile at him for the first time. "Luna?" he breathed.

"What is it, Harry?"

"I'm a little scared… I think… Luna, I think I might be… falling for you." It was the only conclusion that made sense, but even as he said it, he wished he could call the words back: what kind of thing was that to tell her? Especially to tell her that it frightened him?

Luna, however, did not seem bothered by his choice of words. "It's alright, Harry. This is all rather new to you, isn't it?"

He nodded wordlessly against her, taking a deep breath to ease his own shaking. Luna broke away and looked at him at arms' length, her expression unreadable. She then patted him once on the chest, as if telling him to stay put, and took her wand from behind her ear. As Harry watched, she used the tip of it to draw a circle in the earthen floor around them. After taking a moment to scan the darkening patches of sky above them, she turned him slightly in place, then gently pressed down on his shoulders, indicating that he should sit. Harry did so, and Luna settled directly opposite him, so that they could speak face to face.

"What are we doing?" Harry asked.

"Talks of this nature are best done within a circle," she replied. "You wouldn't want the whole forest gossiping about it, now, would you?"

"I… guess not."

"Now," she continued, taking a measured breath and smiling faintly. "That was a very sweet thing to say, and thank you for saying it."

"Er, you're welcome. Was it?"

"It was. But I don't believe you _are_ falling for me."

"You don't? I mean… I'm not?"

She shook her head gently. "I'm not the one for you, Harry. Not now, anyway. You see, my heart is…"

"Do you have a boyfriend?" he asked when she did not finish her sentence.

"It's… more complicated than that. I'm sorry, but I shouldn't say more about it right now."

"I'm sorry," he echoed. "I didn't mean to make you… uncomfortable."

"You haven't," she smiled softly. "But think about what you just told me. It may feel a _little_ scary, but isn't it wonderful to know that you _can_ fall for someone, with everything you've been through? Isn't it beautiful to be able to reach that place inside yourself?"

She reached across the circle to gently squeeze his hand, and Harry felt very warm inside. While part of him was disappointed at her words, he realized that she was right: it _was_ good to know that he was capable of something deeper than the feelings he'd had for Cho. And it would be quite interesting to see where those feelings led him from here. "I've never known anyone quite like you, Luna."

"I should hope not," she nodded. "It would be awful if there were doppelgangers in Britain again after all these years."

He stifled a laugh. "Hermione was right, you know. I think you really are a Muse."

At this she actually blushed and looked away. "That was… perhaps the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me. Anyone other than Daddy, at any rate."

"Well, I still think it's true. I think you've been quite an inspiration. Thank you."

"I'm sorry I'm not the Muse you thought I might be," she sighed. "I can't be Erato for you, much less Calliope. But you'll find her, Harry – I know you will."

They sat in silence as the sky faded to twilight. At length, Luna stood up, dusted herself off, and offered him a hand. "We should get back to the castle. Thank you for walking with me, Harry."

"Thank you for letting me. I hope we can do it again sometime."

"We will."

She retrieved her instrument case from the ground, he gathered up Hermione's book, then the two of them began retracing their steps to the lake, hand in hand.

* * *

The school was still buzzing about Saturday's events by the time Harry, Hermione, Ron and Neville arrived at Monday's sixth-year Herbology class. While Professor Sprout pointedly dodged any questions about the nature of the next gathering, she had prepared them a decidedly musical lesson for the day with the introduction of whistling grass. 

As Sprout explained, each blade of whistling grass could have one of a number of beneficial properties if prepared properly, but each individual blade was good for only one of these. The trick, then, was in distinguishing between those that could, for example, be made into a salve for burns and those that could be used in the making of Skele-Gro potion. There were, however, no telltale differences in size or colour to help the herbologist sort one from the other.

The way to tell them apart, as it turned out, was to test how the individual blades resonated with different musical pitches. Each "type" responded to a different range of frequencies, so when one whistled (or used a wind instrument to play) the appropriate pitch, the corresponding blades would begin to vibrate. After explaining this, Sprout had the class pair off, and gave each pair a soprano recorder and a fingering chart: one would play the pitches, and the other would harvest the individual blades.

Since Harry and Hermione were each keen to try the instruments, Hermione paired off with Ron and Harry went with Neville. Soon the whole of the greenhouse was filled with sounds (some more musical than others) as the pairs worked with their individual patches of grass.

"Let's see," said Harry, consulting the chart and adjusting the recorder in his hands. "F-sharp, good for an anti-scarring lotion." He put his lips to the mouthpiece, held the tip of the recorder close to the grass, and blew. Immediately, several of the broad blades began to quiver, and Neville expertly pulled them up by the roots, one at a time.

"Looks like I'd better learn to play one of those things," Neville grinned. "Wouldn't that be a switch, to get music homework instead of the usual?"

"It sure would," Harry agreed, though he was already doing his fair share of such homework.

"You know, I heard a rumour that they might start a choir," Neville went on. "Wouldn't that be something?"

"It sure would."

"Did you have fun dancing last Saturday? I swear, it was all I could do to keep up with anyone. But I heard someone from Hufflepuff saying that knowing dance steps can actually help you resist the _taratangella_ curse. It'd be great if we can keep working on that."

Harry caught himself before he could say "It sure would" again. He never would have pegged Neville as the type to be this excited about music and dance.

"Anyway, with no D.A. this year, I'm just glad we'll be getting to do things together outside of classes again," Neville continued, saying this with a barely audible sigh. "I _do_ miss the D.A., though."

"Yeah, but can you imagine Snape's reaction?" Harry reminded him. "I don't think he'd be too happy with us having a Defense Against the Dark Arts club now that _he's_ teaching the subject."

"I still think we could learn more from _you_ than we're getting from _him_, though," Neville grumbled, and Harry could barely contain a satisfied smile.

"E-natural, good for protection from extreme cold," he said instead, bringing the recorder back to his lips and playing the pitch.

"You know, I think this is going to be a good year," Neville said as he began pulling up the next set of vibrating grass blades. "I was a little worried, considering everything that happened over the summer."

"So was I," Harry admitted. "But I think you're right. It looks like they're really going to have a go at keeping everyone's spirits up."

He was about to continue playing the E-natural to get the vibrations going again when one of the greenhouse doors opened. Nymphadora Tonks, one of the Order of the Phoenix members protecting the school, stepped inside, looking rather grim-faced. Without meeting anyone's eye, the metamorph quickly found Professor Sprout and pulled her into a brief, whispered conversation. The professor's face drained of colour as Tonks spoke.

"What do you reckon…" Harry started to say, but Sprout was already clapping her hands loudly. "Attention! Class, may I have your attention? I'm afraid we shall need to continue this at our next session. Miss Abbott, we need to speak with you. The rest of you are dismissed. Leave your recorders and sheets at your seats, please."

Harry looked around the room for Hannah, and found her at one of the other tables, where she had been working with Ernie. She looked vaguely alarmed, but more confused than anything else. Harry shared this feeling: Professor Sprout was never the sort to end class early unless in the event of an emergency.

As the class filed out, Harry hung back slightly, watching out of the corner of his eye as Hannah and Ernie approached their head of house. Sprout looked sternly at Ernie for a moment, but then Hannah took his hand and nodded. He couldn't hear what was being said, but it was obvious that Tonks and Sprout had wanted to speak with Hannah alone.

At this point, Tonks looked up, caught his eye across the room, and waved one hand toward the door in a vague shooing motion. She looked positively drained, and Harry felt a sick sensation inside as it began to dawn on him what they might have been about to tell Hannah.

Ron, Hermione and Neville were waiting for him outside the door, and Harry noticed that Ron was already rigging up one of his brothers' Extendable Ears while Hermione scolded him. "We shouldn't be listening!" she hissed. "If they wanted us to know, we wouldn't have been dismissed."

"You're the one always talking about needing to stay informed now more than ever," Ron reminded her, plugging one end of the device into his left ear while letting its long "tail" snake toward the door that Harry had just closed. "There we go, I can hear them now."

A few seconds passed, and Ron's face paled, much as Sprout's had. Then, clearly heard through the thick wooden doorway even without magical aid, came an anguished, high-pitched scream that could only have come from Hannah. _"NO!"_

"Her mother," Ron whispered. "They found her mother… dead. Death Eaters."

"Oh, no," whispered Hermione.

The four Gryffindors stood silently by the door, Hannah's sobs clearly audible from inside, and looked anywhere but at one another. Harry could not help but try to reconcile the sounds he was now hearing with the peals of laughter from Saturday's dance, and he wondered if he'd ever hear that distinctive laughter again.

**Next:** Polyhymnia


End file.
